The American Mirage: 11 Flashing Red Warnings That the Economy Is Bleeding Out

1. Housing Market Collapse Isn’t a Dip—It’s a Crater New single-family home sales collapsed by 13.7% in May 2025. That isn’t a seasonal quirk. It’s a clear signal that buyers are either priced out or terrified of locking into 7% mortgage rates on top of bloated sticker prices. The six-month average has been obliterated, and we're now trailing pre-pandemic levels. What’s more insidious? Builders are throwing in everything from finished basements to stainless steel refrigerators just to unload inventory. When incentives fail, it's no longer a demand issue—it’s a trust issue. People don’t believe in the long-term health of the economy. They don’t want to get stuck holding a mortgage on a depreciating asset. 2. Home Prices Are Slipping—A Sign of Deep Rot, Not Relief The Case-Shiller Index shows prices dipped for two consecutive months, with the biggest monthly decline since late 2022. This isn’t good news for affordability. It’s a red flag for equity erosion. Homeowners who refinanced during the 2021-2022 bubble are waking up underwater. And if prices drop while mortgage rates stay high, we’re heading into negative equity territory—a toxic combo last seen in 2008. And let’s be real: this drop is modest now, but corrections don’t tap the brakes. Once market psychology flips from FOMO to panic, prices fall like bricks, not feathers. 3. Existing Home Sales Are Stuck in 2009 Territory May 2025 logged the weakest existing home sales since the dark days of the Great Recession. The reason? High rates, high prices, and no inventory. Boomers won’t sell because they’re locked into sub-3% mortgages, and buyers can’t buy because rates are near 7%. So the market freezes. Liquidity evaporates. This isn’t just a housing story—it’s a consumer spending story. People can’t move, can’t renovate, can’t tap home equity. That’s a giant economic engine seized up. 4. Retail Sales Dropped Like a Stone—and It's Just Getting Started Retail sales cratered 0.9% in May. That’s nearly double the expected decline. Don’t let talking heads blame it on "gas prices" or "tariffs." The truth is more basic: Americans are broke. Credit card debt has exploded past $1.3 trillion, savings are depleted, and inflation never really retreated. When Main Street stops spending, Wall Street won’t be far behind. And when consumer spending makes up 70% of GDP, even a 1% pullback becomes a category five storm. 5. Labor Market Is Deteriorating—Especially for the Young Fed research now openly admits what job seekers already know: the labor market is deteriorating. College grads aged 22–27 are facing unemployment rates nearing 6%. That's the highest in four years. Entry-level positions are disappearing as companies automate or offshore them to cut costs. This is the next lost generation—armed with degrees, drowning in debt, and locked out of stable employment. When they default on loans and abandon the workforce, the long-term damage to productivity and demographics will be irreversible. 6. Layoffs Are Surging—Not in Niche Sectors, but Across the Board In May alone, 93,816 job cuts were announced—up 47% year-over-year. That’s not seasonal. That’s systemic. Companies aren’t trimming fat—they’re amputating limbs. This is the corporate sector signaling that it sees no recovery on the horizon. When companies expect a rebound, they pause hiring. When they expect a recession, they fire. And right now, they’re slashing. 7. YTD Layoffs Are Up 80%—That’s Not a Cycle, It’s a Cliff Almost 700,000 job cuts have been announced in the first five months of 2025—an 80% surge over 2024’s already brutal numbers. We’re about one month away from surpassing all of last year’s total layoffs. These aren’t just low-wage jobs. They’re engineers, analysts, creatives—skilled labor. The sectors being hit (tech, media, finance) were once immune. Now they’re being gutted to pad earnings reports and appease shareholders drunk on buybacks. 8. California's Factories Are Dropping Like Flies Amy’s Kitchen, Anheuser-Busch, and multiple small-scale plants shut down in a single week. That’s not bad luck. That’s economic darwinism. Inflation is chewing through margins. Regulatory overreach is crushing innovation. Supply chains are still crippled. What used to be the fifth-largest economy in the world is now hemorrhaging industrial jobs by the hundreds. If California is the “model” for a green economic future, we’re all in trouble. It’s a petri dish of centralized dysfunction. 9. Paramount’s Cuts Are the Tip of a Very Large Iceberg Paramount just axed 3.5% of its U.S. workforce. This is more than just belt-tightening—this is the media industry realizing it can’t survive in its current form. Linear TV is a corpse. Streaming is a money pit. Ad revenue is drying up. They’re cannibalizing staff just to tread water. The same executives who championed expansion are now pushing mass layoffs while collecting golden parachutes. Media's reckoning isn’t years away. It’s now. 10. Microsoft Guts Its Gaming Division—Again Microsoft is now on its fourth round of layoffs in the Xbox division in just 18 months. This isn’t “restructuring”—it’s retreat. Gaming was one of the few sectors with explosive growth during COVID. But that sugar high is gone. Studios are shuttered. Developers are out. Projects are canceled. And the message is clear: not even Big Tech's darlings are safe. 11. Even Google Is Throwing Workers Overboard Google—arguably the most bloated and protected company in modern history—is now handing out buyouts like coupons. Search, Ads, AI—all hit. The departments that mint billions are being trimmed because executives are terrified of a revenue plateau and looming antitrust action. If Google is shedding staff, it's not about "streamlining." It's about survival in a post-advertising economy. Their monopoly can’t hide their shrinking margins forever. Final Shot: Welcome to the Controlled Burn This isn’t a recession. It’s a controlled demolition of the middle class. The Fed keeps rates high, strangling credit. Congress keeps spending like drunken sailors while pretending to care about “fiscal responsibility.” And corporations keep laying off the backbone of America while buying back their own stock. Meanwhile, media tells you it’s fine. That the recovery is “right around the corner.” That inflation is “transitory.” That layoffs are “strategic.” Don’t believe a word of it. Batten down. Keep your job if you’ve got one. Build savings if you can. And remember: the system isn’t broken. It was built this way.

The American Mirage: 11 Flashing Red Warnings That the Economy Is Bleeding Out

Bill Brocius Jun 26

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